Despite UGC instructions, private universities continue to enroll students

Many private universities are enrolling students despite the fact that they lack accredited campuses or programs and are disregarding the University Grants Commission's instructions (UGC).

The lack of vice chancellors (VCs), pro-VCs, and treasurers is another issue at many universities.

As per the existing rules, the certificates of private university students must be signed by the VCs appointed by the President of Bangladesh and examination controllers.

On September 23, 2021, the UGC issued a public circular, alerting admission seekers so that they would not get admitted to the universities having the mentioned problems.

The UGC is likely to issue such a circular shortly so that admission seekers can refrain from getting admission to the varsities, said an assistant director of the UGC, wishing not to be named.

According to the updated information of the UGC, Presidency University, Victoria University of Bangladesh and Southeast University are operating unapproved campuses or buildings.

When contacted, Ruhul Amin, registrar of Presidency University, told the Daily Sun that their Baridhara’s Block No. J campus had no approval.

“We will soon move to our permanent campus at Purbachal,” he said.

The varsity has no VC and it is being run by the acting VC.

On the matter, he said that they placed a panel on the appointment of VC to the President, and hoped that the VC would be appointed soon.

According to the UGC, State University of Bangladesh, North South University and Asian University of Bangladesh are running unapproved programmes.

Of them, State University is illegally running Master of Business Administration (Executive) programme while North South University is illegally operating  BBA in Finance, BBA in Human Resource Management, BBA in International Business, BBA in Marketing, BBA in Management, BBA in Management Information Systems, BBA in Accounting, BBA in Economics, BBA in Entrepreneurship and BBA in Supply Chain Management.

Asian University of Bangladesh is running MBA Executive and MBA Evening programmes without permission of the UGC. The private varsity has no authorities approved by the President for the last nine years while it is admitting additional students at MBA programmes than the fixed numbers. The People’s University of Bangladesh has no treasurer since its foundation and the tenure of VC expired on November 26, 2021 with no pro-VC.

A conflict is prevailing among the Board of Trustees of Britannia University while the Ministry of Education approved Queens University on September 6, 2015 to fulfill all the conditions within a year, but it was not done.

IBAIS University has no UGC approved address while The University of Comilla is yet to be approved to begin its educational activities.

The UGC has kept Bangladesh University and European University of Bangladesh under red star marks by which the admission seekers were alerted.

When contacted, Md Rokonuzzaman, deputy director (private university division) of the UGC, told the Daily Sun that they are trying their best so that the private universities run as per the rules and regulations.

“We are continuously monitoring the varsities. We are hopeful that the universities will abide by the UGC rules,” he said.

He added that they would go for action if the varsities would continue running unapproved campuses or programmes.